Sekvantoj

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

Sankta Gallus kaj Pádraigín Ní hUalacháin

The Irish manuscripts at St Gallen are the oldest in the world and among the most beautiful depicting in stylish script and with great ornamentation the story of the Gospels.

The Irish monks, who worked under a vow of silence did write small poems and notes in the glosses. One, said Frau Hufenus, wrote "rough parchment, thin ink", giving out about the quality of his tools while another, correcting a poorly finished page, wrote: "too much beer".

Sean-nós singer in residence at the Queen's Séamus Heaney Library, Pádraigín Ní hUalacháin, had put poems from the glosses into music and sang for the packed Cultúrlann audience last night — a courageous and generous act given that her son Macdara was in hospital in Italy being operated on for a broken back suffered during a climbing accident in the Alps. Reports from the hospital were good. Go raibh sé ar ais a sheanléim gan mhoill.